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Re: Larry Bird LEAVING the Pacers

Sounds to me like Walsh/Pritchard is the next-gen Walsh/Bird: Never completely clear who does what. Awesome.

That's why I don't like Donnie coming back, too. We don't need both.

Exactly. A huge reason that the past 4 years worked out well for the team was because we had a power structure with a clear authoritative figure in Bird. There was no question that Bird was the top dog from 08-12. But now we are at risk of things being like they were from 03-08, where we won't know who exactly has the final say.

I would be fine with all of this if it were just Pritchard, even though I wanted Bird back. But the idea of Walsh returning is a complete buzz kill.

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Re: Larry Bird LEAVING the Pacers

Anyone else think it's a little uncharacteristic of Larry to leak this right before his meeting with Simon? However, Walsh did not publically deny he was coming back, so I guess it's probably official.

Re: Larry Bird LEAVING the Pacers

I don't really get why you guys are so worried about who to credit/blame. I honestly don't care who makes the call as long as they just make good moves. I think KP and Walsh will do that.

I guess I'm just not sure of that. Unless the two of them are often on the same page, they're probably going to influence one another and cause us to make moves that don't really all fit together like a plan or a vision. I fear a Frankenstein Roster over the next 1+ years.

Re: Larry Bird LEAVING the Pacers

I'm hoping and it seems as though Pritchard will do a majority of the work, phone calls to GM's, personnel moves, salary cap, etc., whereas Walsh will mostly oversee overall operations, scouting, and communication lines to ownership. At least, if it follows similar precedent of the Bird/Morway working relationship. Walsh will have final say, but Pritchard should do most of the heavy lifting so to speak.

Re: Larry Bird LEAVING the Pacers

FWIW, I want Donnie involved in the drafting instead of Larry. Larry tends to draft 'NBA ready' players that fill a need. Donnie tends to draft 'talent'. I like drafting for talent and trading for need myself.

Interesting! So Granger, Paul George, Hibbert, Stephenson, S. Williams, and White were all drafted on needs not talent by Bird?

Re: Larry Bird LEAVING the Pacers

Let's see if we can make some sense out of all this, without calling anyone a demon.

This is just a guess, but it makes sense to me.

After the season ends, Bird sounds like a guy who is ready to give it his all and continue to rebuild this team to lofty standards.

Some time passes, Bird's back starts to act up even more, and his doctor tells him "Larry, its time to get this taken care of, but it will require you take some time off for total rest and rehab.". In the meantime Bird calls Simon and says "We better put off this meeting, I've just been thrown a medical curve ball.".

After careful consideration, it is decided that he will have the surgery, and very reluctantly take a year off to (hopefully) fully recuperate. Now, the work still needs to be done, but Larry has been told by his doctor that he needs FULL REST AND REHAB for a lengthy time to recover.

Well, what to do?

Consider this as well. Perhaps part of the "negotiation" to be done between Simon and Bird had to do with whether Simon would allow Bird to take a year off from his duties (for the surgery and recuperation time), and then allow him to return when he healed. Part of this might have been Simon's concern with who would run the operation in Bird's absence.

Walsh is available. Bird and Simon are both very familiar with him, and there is a mutual trust and respect between the three. A plus is, if Larry is ready to return to work in a year, Walsh probably doesn't want to take on a heavy lifting role for a long time period to begin with.

So, the deal is done. Larry gets his surgery and time to heal. Walsh gets to "come back home" to help further a team he cares dearly about, and Simon gets to retain people he trusts in the front office throughout it all.

Like I say, I'm just guessing at all this. But it seems more likely than some of the behind the back conspiracy theories being pitched around.

Yeah, drama is more interesting, but sometimes the truth can be simple.

If it were really his back then it would be stated that Bird needs a year off for surgery and recuperation and perhaps will return. Haven't heard that at all. Haven't even heard that a year is what it will take for recovery or how extensive the surgery will be.

This looks to me like a clean break and it looks even worse that Bird was interviewing or seemingly so for the Orlando job. Whatever the situation I don't see Bird back unless he buys the team from Herb.

Re: Larry Bird LEAVING the Pacers

I would imagine this situation will work out to be better than Walsh/Bird mostly because Pritchard already has experience, whereas Bird would have still been learning the ropes when he first came here.

I'm not a huge fan of bringing back Walsh in this capacity, but with Bird leaving I can understand why. As of right now I am cautiously optimistic. Both Walsh and Pritchard know what they are doing, and as long as they can work together they should be a great team.

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Re: Larry Bird LEAVING the Pacers

Ugh, Bill Polian gets canned by the Colts only for Walsh to return to the Pacers a mere 6 month later. When Polian was fired, I thought that meant the days of watching old, past-their-prime GM's run the teams I love were finally over. I guess I spoke too soon.

Re: Larry Bird LEAVING the Pacers

Ugh, Bill Polian gets canned by the Colts only for Walsh to return to the Pacers a mere 6 month later. When Polian was fired, I thought that meant the days of watching old, past-their-prime GM's run the teams I love were finally over. I guess I spoke too soon.

Didn't you hear? Crean is stepping down and Knight is taking over for IU again.